


The Observer

by Mildredo



Category: Queer as Folk (UK)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-03
Updated: 2011-12-03
Packaged: 2017-10-26 20:34:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/287562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mildredo/pseuds/Mildredo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She had always been told that she was a 'people-watcher', but this was different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Observer

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know what this is... It's been in my head since I saw this [http://avisionofyou.tumblr.com/post/13498078838] post on tumblr the other day, and I feel like I haven't written QAF for ages, so have the contents of my brain. <333

She had always been told that she was a 'people-watcher', but this was different.

 

The first time she saw them, they were just teenagers. She had been walking the dogs at lunchtime, as she always did, and lots of rowdy, excited kids had passed her, with ties around their heads and multi-coloured writing all over their white shirts. She’d remembered her neighbour saying something a few days before about how it was her grandson’s last day of school that week, and so that must have been it. She had only finished school herself five years before, but it seemed like a lifetime. She thought she had passed the madness of overexcited school leavers when she saw two boys, trailing behind, in their own world. The darker one, who sounded like he had an accent, grabbed the fairer ones hands and span them around in a circle, laughing before hugging him tightly. She watched from a safe enough distance as their eyes locked, their faces fell and they looked as if they were just drinking each other in, like they were about to kiss. Then, of course, Hardy started pulling on the lead and Laurel started whining, so she had to keep walking and not see the ending. She hoped they did kiss. They looked like they’d make a nice couple.

The second time she saw them was five years later, while she was on a date with the man who would become her husband. They caught her eye from a nearby table and she kept looking over, trying to place them. Eventually, she remembered that they were the kids she’d seen that day a few years before. She was distracted for the whole meal, trying to hear what they were saying. When the restaurant thinned out a little, she could hear them better. The dark one, who _did_ have an accent, was talking about university, all the people he knew and things he was learning, and how none of it really compared to the brief spells he got at home. The fairer one was smiling, nodding, listening intently and occasionally talking about his job at the local supermarket, how they already wanted to promote him to supervisor but he felt too young to take it. They still looked at each other in the same way, like they were willing the other to do something, start something, but they were clearly still just friends. She apologised for being distracted on the date, and explained why. Her husband told her much later that it was at that moment he fell in love with her.

The third time she saw them was in a bar on Canal Street the following summer. She had recently decided that she didn’t want to keep living off her parents, she was far too old for that, and she wanted to get a job. The only problem was that her parents worked all day, and someone needed to be there for the dogs. Laurel and Hardy were getting old and couldn’t be left alone for too long, and so her only option was bar work in the evenings. When they came to the bar early in the evening to order a round, she recognised them immediately. She didn’t say anything, of course, but she may have risked her new job by deliberately undercharging them. Her manager had noticed the small deficit, but had put it down to her not being completely adept with the till yet, and making her do extra training before her next shift. It was worth it. She saw them a lot more frequently from then on. They often started their nights there, sometimes just the two of them but often with a group of people around them. There was an older woman - she soon learnt that she was the fairer ones mother, and a complete lunatic, and she had felt a pang of jealousy that he had such an incredible mother. There was also a blonde man, _exceptionally_ camp but she was quickly getting used to that, a slightly less flamboyant but still quite camp man, and a bloke who seemed to permanently have a face like a wet weekend. Amongst their friends, she still saw the two of them. She quietly studied them from the safety of her bar. They had signals, touches, silent things that only they understood. They never stopped looking at each other like they did that first time she had seen them, and she had to fight the urge to walk over and smash their faces together on more than one occasion.

She got to know Vince quite well, starting with normal bar chat that worked its way into a kind of friendship, and he told her all about Stuart. It made more sense when she heard it from him rather than the things she’d pieced together in her mind. She never told him about how she had kind of a little bit stalked them unintentionally. He never said it out loud but he was completely in love with Stuart, and she knew that he thought Stuart would never feel the same. She spoke to Stuart a few times, as well, and whatever the conversation topic it would always, _always_ come back to Vince. It was satisfying, in a way, knowing she had been right for all these years.

She worked in the bar for ten years. Once she moved out of her parents and in with her fiancé, they decided that he made enough to keep them financially afloat if she didn’t want to work, but she did. She cut down her shifts to only Friday and Saturday nights, so she didn’t leave for work every night as soon as he got home. Ten years into her job, she finally, _finally_ fell pregnant after many long years of trying. There was a big party in honour of her last shift before her maternity leave began, and of course, they were there. They had been on a trip, driving across America, and she had missed them in their absence. They returned on the day she was leaving and she was pleased to see them. There was something new about them, a glow that wasn’t just from the suntans. From across the room, she saw them look at each other, bodies pressed together and faces close, with broad, confident smiles. And then, finally, they kissed. No one knew it, but it was the best leaving present she could have had.


End file.
